Culture Days this weekend

HUNTSVILLE – Artist Brenda Wainman Goulet wants to get the community’s children involved in a Culture Days celebration.
Wainman Goulet, the artist behind the landmark Tom Thomson statue in front of the Huntsville Civic Centre, is hosting an interactive art installation at The Art Space Gallery and Workshop during a three-day national cultural celebration.
Individual artists, community groups and organizations will hold public arts and culture activities across Canada from Friday, Sept. 28, to Sunday, Sept. 30, as part of Culture Days.
Wainman Goulet said she is setting up her project on Saturday, Sept. 29, in the courtyard in front of the Huntsville Art Society’s gallery across from River Mill Park starting at 11 a.m.
“I’m using natural materials and I’m going to get the kids waxing leaves, then they are going to put them together in a Tom Thomson painting,” she said.
She called the project a community painting without the paint.
“There will be coloured leaves in place of where the paint would be,” she said.
Kids participating in the project will learn how to wax leaves before adding them to a four by five-foot replica of a Thomson painting.
The project, said Wainman Goulet, coincides with another installation at the gallery by art society members called Canadian Spirit.
It is an exhibition to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Thomson coming to Huntsville.
Canadian Spirit will be part of the Culture Days festivities as well and includes artists Kate Brown, Alan Glicksman,Beverley Hawksley, Stephen Hogbin, Sarah Spring and Wainman Goulet.
“When I was asked to be part of the Canadian Spirit, show curator Mary Rashleigh asked me to do some outdoor installations, which was different for me,” said Wainman Goulet. “To make them large I decided to work with natural materials – I’ve always been collecting them anyway – and I put them together in two crazy pieces as part of Canadian Spirit.”
The children’s installation will follow the same theme, she said.
And she added she loves getting young people creating work.
“They’re all artists,” she said. “And I spoke to about 45 kids this week in The Art Space about what Canadian spirit means and a little about Tom Thomson, so this is a way to educate them and have fun at the same time.”
More Culture Days events in Huntsville include backstage tours and drama workshops at the Algonquin Theatre, 37 Main St. E., on Saturday, Sept. 29, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
And Huntsville High School’s music group the Song Project will perform on Friday, Sept. 28, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Algonquin Theatre.
A poetry reading happens at Huntsville Public Library, on Saturday, Sept. 29, from 1 to 2 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 30, from 1 to 2 p.m.
And a display about Huntsville founder Capt. George Hunt will be open to the public at the Huntsville train station.
There will also be free museum and collections tours at Muskoka Heritage Place, 88 Brunel Rd., Huntsville.
Muskoka-wide events include the Muskoka Autumn Studio Tour on all three days from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information on the studio tour, visit www.muskokaautumnstudiotour.com
For more information on Culture Days events, visit www.culturedays.ca.